a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

House Cleaning Odds and Ends, Part 2

**Millsap, after the Phoenix game: “There’s no chemistry out there, man. No chemistry at all.” (@tksportsbeat)

**Phil Johnson, after the Phoenix game: [If [Jefferson] gets the ball in deep, he doesn’t like to pass it, so that’s (Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah) something you gotta work on with him.] Yeah, there’s no question. In the first half, he didn’t look for anybody. In the second half, he did much better. He can’t score on two guys, bottom line. He’s got to look for cutters, or guys will quit cutting. He’s got to improve in that area, there’s no question about it. He’s struggling right now, because everything’s new, and it’s going to take him some time.

Way to go for the ball, f*cking Lopez. (He’s still on my sh!t list for that pushing-AK-in-the-back-while-he-was-in-the-air foul last season and then claiming he was only doing what “other” defensive enforcers would do. Yes, I am editorializing with the quotation marks.)

**CJ, after the Phoenix game: The worst thing that could’ve happened was us going 8-0 [in the preseason] …[because] from a mental standpoint and the team that we have, and the stuff we have to do, going 8-0 probably didn’t help us.

**Raja, after the Phoenix game: Tonight, I can only speak for myself, but I was just trying to do too much, trying to make an extra pass when you should shoot and trying to make a perfect play and sometimes when you do that, it’s worse than if you had just put it up there on the rim. I think I was trying a little too hard tonight and I think as a team we might’ve done that a bit.

**Raja, the morning after: [From your perspective as someone who’s been on different teams around the league–how important is it at this time to make sure guys aren’t pointing fingers and that everyone continues to have the same attitude and mentality?] I think that’s huge. At this point, we should all be looking in the mirror a little bit. It’s early in the season…it’s NEVER a time to point fingers. That’s the beginning of the end for a team, when guys start calling out other people…and so I think if we all go to our own mirror and look at ourselves and ask ourselves what we could do better, we’ll help this team a lot more.

**CJ, the morning after: If I stop hacking people, I might actually have a chance to start doing something. I haven’t been in either game for more than five minutes without having to go sit back down before I even have a chance to get down the court and break a sweat. I’m stinking it up. I’ve got to do better, I’ve got to play better. There’s no excuse for it. … If I can do the things I did–the steals, the couple of blocks–during the preseason, I can get fast breaks, and then I can get layups, and then it all builds. It builds from that. So it’s got to start at the other end for me.

Maybe if he just used some product to “fix” his hair into place like this? That’d be kinda cool.

[Have you talked to [the coaches] about restructuring the offense?]No.[Do you think there’s a need to?]I just don’t know much good it’s going to do.It’d be nice [if the team could watch film together].[Who have you talked to about doing that?]It doesn’t matter.

A day earlier, Jerry had some interesting comments on Deron’s shape:

[Deron’s struggling from the field these first two games. Is it just shots aren’t falling, or is it shot selection?] He missed some layups, I thought there was a couple layups he ordinarily makes. I think every player goes through tough times somewhere along the line. He’s probably not in his greatest shape, missing a couple games by being injured and then having to miss some [games due to personal reasons]. He’ll be fine.

Incidentally, Deron is wearing a mouth guard this season. Yes, you do come here for all the breaking news in Jazzland.

**All’s apparently good in Jazzland now. “A much more relaxed, comfortable and optimistic Deron” after practice:

Yesterday was good. We worked a lot on our offense, going through that. We looked at some film, which definitely helps. It always helps to see yourself on film, I think. See the mistakes you’re making individually. Guys can watch and see what they’re doing and where they’re making mistakes at. (sltrib)

**Everyone’s said their piece about the Deron/Hayward thing; no need for me to say more. I’m posting this video because I like how other guys on the team, namely Big Al, Raja, and AK offered Hayward encouragement/support afterwards in the form of, respectively, words, back slaps, and butt slaps.